


Chiral Staircase

by Tiberius_Tibia



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: 1930s, 1940s, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - 1930s, Alternate Universe - 1940s, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Domestic Violence, Dubious Consent, Eventual Smut, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Multiverse, Period-Typical Racism, Protective Bucky Barnes, Protective Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers Feels, Strangers to Lovers, Temporary Character Death, Whump, World War II, but they’re not really strangers, sort of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-05
Updated: 2015-06-08
Packaged: 2018-03-08 08:28:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3202454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tiberius_Tibia/pseuds/Tiberius_Tibia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There never was just one Captain America. How could there be, when there are an infinite number of universes?</p><p>In one, James Barnes lost his dearest friend to diphtheria at the age of fourteen. In another, Steve Rogers arrived in France to find James Barnes listed among those KIA in the capture of the 107th. </p><p>And not all Captain Americas are created equal, but things always balance themselves out in the end and universes align more often than we’d guess. Thor could have told them that if anyone had asked him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The One Where They Both Die

**Author's Note:**

> Chirality in chemistry describes molecules of identical composition, but which are arranged as non-superposable mirror images; human hands are perhaps the most universally recognized example of chirality.

Trafalgar Square, 1945- VE Day

Dugan kept close to the edge of the crowd. He was as giddily punch-drunk as the rest of the throng, but he couldn’t leave. He leaned back against the remains of a brick wall of their beloved Lamb & Flag. He was was thirty-five years old, and he hadn’t cried in public since he was in short pants, but now with every breath he took it felt like one lung was filling up for a hearty whoop while the other threatened to sob like a baby.

Captain Rogers sat in the pub alone. There’d been nothing but bravado in the man since he’d come parachuting in like an avenging angel to save them all from their captors in Brandenburg. Except he hadn’t come to save them all, and the man he’d come for had been dead for twelve days. But he’d saved them, and when the generals talked of sending him back to the USO tour and Steve had come within a hair’s breadth of insubordination, their motley crew of fighters had flocked to him. He was a good leader and they were a good team, but they always felt slightly like a second-hand board game with a bottle cap standing in for one of the pieces.

As the war had drawn closer and closer to its painful, inevitable end and it looked like the side of the angels might prevail this one goddam’ time, Captain Rogers’ slate-faced stoicism had—not cracked—more like sloughed off. What was left reminded Dugan of his sister’s cat when it tangled with the O’Brady’s cur: something fierce but fragile, skulking off to heal or die on its own.

Dum Dum drained his glass and slipped into the pub for another. The proprietor had heaved the last few kegs up and left them open to one and all, and by this point they were nearly drained.

“Get you a pint, Cap?” he asked Steve’s back.

Rogers turned to look at him. His face was so pale he really did look like one of those statues of olden gods; all marble sheen and empty eyes. But he smiled at Dugan and shook his head.

“Nah, it’s wasted on me. Thanks though. You go out an enjoy yourself.”

“Sure I can’t persuade you to join me?” Dum Dum wheedled, “They say them two princesses are out there in the crowd, mixin’ like ordinary dames. Betcha if anyone could steal a kiss from one of ‘em it’d be you.”

Steve shook his head. “No thanks, but they’d be lucky to kiss any one of the Commandos and if you see ‘em you can tell ‘em Captain America said so.”

Dugan laughed and made to leave with his pint. “You know, you did great work Captain. Saved a lot of good people.”

“Thanks.” Steve sounded slightly embarrassed and very much like he wanted to be left alone. So Dum Dum and his brew rejoined the crowd of revelers outside. Just before he got swept up in the jubilation he saw someone enter the pub. Dark hair, infantry uniform— and so uncannily like a man who’d once been locked up with Dugan, a man who’d been dragged off by the Nazi-Hydra bastards and never seen again.  


* * *

  
_Williamsburg, 1933  
_

_James Barnes ran up the narrow stairs. He was at the age of overnight growth spurts, his arms were just beginning to thicken from skinny to sinewy, and in them he carried a large box. It was nine flights up. He reached the landing and set his burden down before knocking._

_“Bucky,” the woman who answered was gray-haired and gray-eyed, even her skin was starting to look gray. Her uniform, in contrast, was still stark white. “Thank you for coming, but you know I can’t let you in.”_

_“It’s okay Mrs. Rogers, I got my Schtick this week and the doc says it’s alright.” He shifted the weight of the box from his right hip to his left. “Ma said I could bring the radio over to keep Steve company till he’s better.”_

_“Come in,” she ushered him inside and shut the door._

_“He’s not asleep, is he?” Bucky asked, “I can come back.”_

_“He’s awake,” Sarah answered, regarding her son’s young friend with a grave expression. She kept her voice level. “He’s not very comfortable these days. It’ll be good to have you here to distract him. Be sure to thank your mama for us.”_

_“Yes ma’am.” He lifted the radio carefully out of the box. “I’ll keep his mind off things.” He started towards Steve’s room. A moment before, Sarah Rogers would have told you that she had no more grief left to give, but just then she ached for her son’s best friend. The last time he’d seen Steve, it had been just a cough and a low grade fever. Bucky’d stuck by Steve through much worse. Now..._

_“Bucky—” her voice was higher now, as though she were pleading with someone powerful, someone besides the fourteen-year-old boy before her. “He doesn’t look so good right now. I don’t want you to be surprised.”_

_The blue eyes meeting hers widened slightly and he nodded. “But, will he be sick a long time? Like that time he was down with pneumonia for the whole summer?”_

_“No, hon,” she couldn’t look at him while she said it, couldn’t look at his robust face and those eyes that reflected so much love for her son, “I don’t think he’ll be sick. Not for too much longer.” Bucky stared at her dumbly. She gave him a kind little push, “Go on then, he’ll be glad to see you. I’m going to lie down for a while.”_

_Steve’s room smelled of bleach. The art supplies that were usually scattered across his desk were stacked neatly. Everything was tidy and fresh except the boy in the bed._

_“Hiya Buck,” Steve rasped when saw his friend._

_“Hey Stevie.” Bucky shut the door behind him. “Look what I brought.” He set the radio on the oddly uncluttered desk and dragged it closer to the bed._

_“If you stole that from your Ma Buck, I swear I’ll knock you into next week.”_

_Bucky laughed, “Yeah yeah. You’re all talk, punk.” He sat at the foot of the bed and scooted back, leaning against the wall. Steve did look bad. His pointy chin was swallowed in the round paunch of his swollen throat. He was sweaty and his skin had a blue tint. Bucky thought with a vague sick feeling of the time as a kid when he’d shoved his way to the front of the crowd when some stiff had washed up from the East River. That man too had been bloated and blue._

_He swallowed hard and changed the subject. “Now— time to answer the age old question…”_

_“Why I put up with you?”_

_Bucky gave him a gentle swat._

_“Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?”_

_“The Shadow!” they both said in unison. Steve erupted in a barking cough, his bony shoulders shaking violently. Bucky’s hand looked like a baseball mitt—large and tanned—against his friend’s back._

_“Easy Stevie, take it easy,” then, when the coughing did not subside, “Should I call your Ma?”_

_Steve shook his head vehemently. “Just- just turn on the damn show.”_

_Bucky did and they sat listening, side-by-side, their hands just touching. About the time Lamont Cranston was saving the lovely Margo from a gang of toughs, Steve’s nose began to drip a runny, bloody, foul-smelling snot. He protested when Bucky tipped his head back and held his own clean handkerchief over Steve’s nose._

_“Dur Ma’s gonna be doh mad,” Steve said nasally, clutching the hankie, “Dur alway’d losing dem.”_

_“Baloney, I haven’t lost one in weeks.” He took the scrap of cloth away carefully. “I think it’s stopped now.”_

_Steve stared down at the ruined hankie. Suddenly he leaned forward and gave Bucky a hard shove. “You should go. No point in you waiting around here for me to croak.”_

_Without thinking Bucky shoved him back, knocking Steve back against the headboard. “Shut up! Just shut up! I’ll go when I want to Steve Rogers, and there’s nothing you can do about it!”_

_He stopped, dismayed that he’d pushed Steve and even more dismayed when he felt himself start to cry, loud and open like a little kid. “You’re my best friend. I’m not leaving, we’re together to the end of the line. You’re my best friend.” He rubbed the tears away with the back of his hand. “What am I gonna do? I can’t—”_

_Steve kept his eyes on the blanket for a long moment. Then he leaned his fevered head against Bucky’s shoulder and twined his clammy fingers with Bucky’s. They lapsed back into silence. By the end of the program, when justice prevailed and the Shadow announced, “The weed of crime bears bitter fruit. Crime does not pay…The Shadow knows!” Steve was asleep, leaning against his friend._

_Bucky thought about bitter fruit. He was too old to believe that a man could hypnotize and control and know other people’s thoughts, but didn’t God know? Was God taking Steve away because of the things Bucky thought when he looked at his friend. He didn’t mean any harm, and he tried not to think about Steve soaked to the skin under an open hydrant on his last birthday or bright eyed and flushed with righteous anger when he challenged some goon._

_“I’m sorry, Stevie,” he whispered into Steve’s sweaty hair and pressed his lips to the fevered cheek. The radio switched to some low, sweet jazz then to static and when Bucky woke a little past midnight, Steve was no longer warm._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Universe B Steve died of diphtheria. In the early decades of the 20th century, before the development of a safe, effective vaccine there were an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 cases of diphtheria every year, causing 13,000 to 15,000 deaths. The Schick Test (which Bucky mispronounces as Schtick) detected the presence of diphtheria antigens in an exposed person, it was intended to determine who was at greatest risk of the disease as the materials to make vaccines were hard to come by at the time. The first vaccine was developed in 1924 but the materials for mass-production were not available. One of the most famous outbreaks of diphtheria was in Nome, Alaska; the "Great Race of Mercy" to deliver diphtheria antitoxin is now celebrated by the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.
> 
> Anyway, let me know what you think. Thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I shall hear, tho' soft you tread above me  
> And all my grave will warm and sweeter be  
> For you will bend and tell me that you love me  
> And I shall sleep in peace until you come to me.

_Williamsburg Brooklyn- 1942_

_The sun wasn’t up yet, but Bucky was washed and dressed and walking the few blocks to Most Holy Trinity at St. Mary’s. It was something he’d sworn blue that he’d never do once he was grown, not after a childhood furnished with thousands of six a.m. masses. This morning though, it was terribly important to be at the church at such an ungodly hour. Or rather, not the church itself, but the churchyard outback. Bucky wanted to be alone with Steve, and he’d learned over the years that the only time he was guaranteed to be uninterrupted was while the rest of the faithful sat through service and the impious slept snug in their beds._

_He found the little plot from memory—Steve’s simple marker a bit more weathered than that of his mother’s. Long habit had him leaning on the left side of the grave, nearer Steve’s good ear, while he sat on the damp grass._

_“Got my orders, Stevie,” he said, “I ship out tomorrow. Sergeant James Barnes of the 107th.”_

_He took a breath and went on, “Becca’s promised to look after you ’n your ma while I’m gone.”_

_The air was still night-cool and Bucky told himself it was the chill that made him wrap his arms tightly around himself. He talked to Steve about basic training, about what an SOB the drill sergeant was, about the movies he’d seen and the girls he’d taken out._

_“Jean promised to write me every week,” he boasted, “So did Eileen. I almost asked Hetty if she’d send me some sketches of this place from time to time. She’s been the best in class since you— left. But she’s got a steady fella’ and I didn’t want to give the wrong impression. ‘sides, Becca’s got about a hundred little friends who promised to give their hair to the war effort in my honor. Ain’t that sweet?”_

_Bucky shifted, one foot gone tingly from sitting too long on it. The sky over the church lightened; he wouldn’t be alone out there much longer. He had so much left to say, yet he hadn’t touched what he’d come there for. Bucky watched his breath mist the morning air._

_“I’m glad you ain’t here, Stevie. For the first time in my whole damn life, I’m glad you don’t have to see what this world’s come to. I know you, I know you’d be champing at the bit to get over there and fight, and I don’t think I could take it. I’m so scared, Steve. I’m so scared for myself I don’t think I have room left to be scared for both of us. But I still wish you were here. The army’d never take you, but maybe you could stay here and write to me. I’ve been trying to make you proud.”_

_The bells pealed the end of mass and Bucky rose, wiping his hands on his trousers to dislodge where the ground had dug into his palms._

_“Well,” he said, trailing his fingers across the lichen-covered placard, “So long for now, Rogers.”_

* * *

_Camp Lehigh, Virginia- 1942_

_“You’re sure you can go ahead without him?” Chester Phillips allowed no uncertainty to creep into his voice. The men opposite him had to be able to make good on their promises, failure was simply not an option._

_“Absolutely,” the leader answered. His lackeys bobbed their heads in agreement like seals waiting for someone to throw them a fish. “Dr. Erskine left detailed journals, calculations, everything we need. You bring us the man, we’ll bring you the super-soldier.”_

You bring us the man, Phillips thought, as though it were so easy.

_Abraham Erskine would have been an unlikely sort of person for Phillips to befriend at his current time of life, but a youth spent studying in Paris and Vienna, followed by a few hellish years watching those lovely lands trampled into mud had brought him into contact with not a few interesting, clever men, among them Abe Erskine of the Bayer Corporation. When he’d heard from Abraham for the first time in years, as the man was en route to Washington with a shipload of fellow refugees, Philips had thought his old friend had finally lost track of his last marble._

_The man was ill, his grey hair turned white and his white skin gone grey, when they’d landed and taken him to hospital. Erskine lay in bed, babbling about his greatest discovery, a serum that could transform mere mortals into invincible demigods. When Phillips had gone to see him, he’d pleaded for forgiveness for allowing the serum to be hijacked by a man who would use it for unspeakable purposes._

_“Good becomes great,” he’d rasped, clutching Chester’s hand in his own clammy ones, “Bad becomes worse. You must be sure of your choice, not a perfect soldier but a good man.” Phillips mumbled a promise and pestered the nurses to up the dying man’s morphine intake because what the hell did it matter if he developed a dependency now?_

_And there Phillips sat, watching the new recruits go through their paces, and every day that passed, every day he dawdled over his choice, meant more good men dying. Hell, how was he supposed to know who was a good man? He was their CO, not their Sunday school teacher. Carver was brave but sloppy and thoughtless, Tiegs was smart but worked only as hard as he had to, Hodge had balls and followed orders but had a bit of a temper, Pirelli couldn’t keep from running his mouth. And they were the best of the best, hand picked by his most trusted recruiters._

_Besides, it wasn’t as though their hopes were really going to rest on one man. Erskine had escaped Germany with the rest of his stores; enough serum to craft a hundred super-soldiers, provided the damn thing worked as advertised. If the first recruit was a dud morals-wise, there’d be another and another after him, a whole army of genuine American Myrmidons to strike fear into the hearts of the enemy. They would follow orders, that was the important thing. Let the COs concern themselves with the mens’ consciences. He would find the best men for the job, starting with Private Hodge. And besides, Philips mused as he studied Hodge’s most recent evaluations, no war was ever won by being a damn girl scout._


	3. Chapter 3

_SSR Laboratory, 1942_

_The best lesson school ever had for Gil Hodge was the old adage ‘better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.’ In a family where a casual remark about the weather could be taken for back-talk and met with anything from a sneer to a slug in the face, Hodge had learned early to keep his trap shut until he was certain that he was the biggest fish in any given pond._

_He’d learned the phrase from the adored and adorable Miss Ealie, and it instilled a sense of serene superiority in a boy with precious little to be proud of. It was a damned sight better than being told that children should be seen and not heard, or that if he had nothing nice to say he should say nothing at all. Few grownups seemed to see or hear him, and Hodge seldom had anything nice to say about anything. But that was alright, keeping himself to himself, President Lincoln said so. Or possibly Mark Twain._

_At any rate, Miss Ealie said so. She was the youngest and prettiest teacher little Gil Hodge ever encountered in his eight years of school and, more importantly, the only one who brought a spare couple of sandwiches with her for any boy or girl unlucky enough to have ‘forgotten’ their lunch. The whole class was smitten with her, but Gil watched her with the starry-eyed wonder of a cartoon wolf whistling at Betty Boop. He started going to school with his hands deliberately unwashed, just for the sweet, tingly moment when Miss Ealie would shake her head at him and, after sending him to the WC to do what he could with soap and water, take out her little manicure pen and gently dig the dirt from under his nails. She’d sit with Gil standing close enough to count every perfect wave in her hair and see the sun glint off the gold chain she always wore. When she left to marry her fiancé a month before the end of school, Hodge took it as a personal betrayal._

_In time Hodge discovered that he did have things to say, usually when he was the biggest boy in the room; they tended to be loud, obvious things and the kids he spoke to mistook cruelty for wit and laughed easily with him. But he never forgot how to be quiet at the right times, in the right places. His drill sergeants never had a single word that even hinted at sass from Private Hodge; he was respectful and diligent. If a certain uppity English cooze objected to his manners well—it was fine to be nice and coaxing to a sheep when she was out in the pasture where she belonged—provided she did what she was told in the end—but no one expected a sheep to be invited into the house and asked for its opinion on current events. Besides, Hodge figured, she had to be screwing somebody to be there at all, and a dame like that should have the decency not to pretend like she belonged._

_When Colonel Phillips announced that Hodge had been chosen as the first candidate for Project Rebirth, pride frothed through his veins like the head of a good beer. Then army doctors began explaining the procedure to him. They used phrases like ‘accelerated cellular regeneration’ and ‘maximization of metabolism’ and looked at him like he was a big, dumb lump of meat._

_“Do you have any questions before we begin, Private Hodge?”_

_Hodge had plenty of questions, none that he would admit to in front of these eggheads, and especially not in front of Colonel Phillips and that limey bitch. So he kept his gaze fixed straight ahead and ignored the trays of needles and the great metal tank like a coffin with all those tubes stretching in and out._

_A slight, dapper man with an air of smugness that immediately made Hodge want to punch him strapped Hodge’s wrists, waist, ankles, biceps and neck into the tank._

_“Ready, Mr. Stark?” one of the eggheads asked from a control panel._

_The dark-haired man raised an eyebrow at Hodge. “What do you say? Speak now or forever hold your piece, Private.”_

_Hodge’s chest heaved, he felt like he was going to be sick. He was the dumbest one in the room, everyone knew that, it wasn’t like he had much of a choice in what happened next now. Stark stood patiently, waiting for an answer. As though Hodge had an answer that Stark didn’t already know._

_Closing his eyes, Hodge nodded._

* * *

_Nobody told him how much it would hurt. On a higher plane of thought, it might have occurred to Hodge that since he was the first, none of them had known how much it would hurt. But that higher plain was a place Hodge rarely ventured, while the animal brain, the part that felt stabbing, hot, cold, itching, tearing, choking, was as familiar as his own bed._

_And then it was over. And hell, he was taller. Hodge had been a big kid who’d grown into a big guy—but now, he had to be nearly six and a half feet tall, with brawn to match. The scientists and officers and Agent Carter, everyone who’d had so goddamn much to say five minutes before now stared at him dumbstruck. He literally had to look down at all of them. Hodge began to grin. Everything dissolved into a flurry of activity as the doctors came to take new readings on his pulse, his temperature. Stark and Phillips and several other bigwigs who’d come to observe the proceedings were shaking hands. Hodge felt—not drunk, drink always made the world fuzzy—he felt… the opposite of drunk, as though everything had sharpened and grown clearer. But an undercurrent of euphoria ran beneath that sharpness._

_Shots broke the joyful mood. One of the eggheads hit the floor, his head smashed open like—Gil thought with some glee—an actual cracked egg. Agent Carter dove at Stark, shoving him behind the tank as more shots rang out. The shooter stood on the stairs about them all, and when he turned to run, Hodge pursued as naturally as a greyhound. The man fled down a hall, into a part of the building unfamiliar to Hodge. People ambling idly through their workplace were bodychecked out of the way. Shots ricocheted back around Hodge, ringing in his ears. The man approached a heavily reinforced door and entered the combination with Hodge hard on his heels. Bone cracked as Hodge stopped the man from shutting himself in with his new, stronger forearm._

_Pain shot through him, but it was diluted with adrenaline and all but meaningless compared with the pain of the transformation. Hodge stepped inside and shut the door behind him. Some silent part of him wanting to keep the rest of them out for as long as possible. The man had snatched a case of vials and was scaling a shelf to the vent in the ceiling. Hodge seized him by one ankle and tore him down. He hit the tile floor in a belly-flop that the coroner would later find had broken his nose, sternum and both knees. The vials shattered, the fluid in them mingling with the spreading blood._

_Hodge lifted a shard of broken glass carefully. The label was marked ‘Project Rebirth—batch 002, sample 079’. He shifted his gaze to the injured man, still trying to struggle to his hands and knees._

_“This is it, isn’t it?” he asked, “This is what they pumped me full of?”_

_The man gave up and rested his head on his forearms. “Cut off one head, two shall take its place, Hail Hy—”_

_His words were cut off but the shard of glass Hodge thrust into his trachea. Slowly, he let the man’s head droop to the floor, as though he’d landed on the glass at the wrong angle._

_Hodge rose to his feet. The case had landed on its side. Now that he counted, Gil saw it was only six vials that had broken. Only six, out of a hundred. Ninety-four left. No, he remembered, ninety-three—they already used on on you. Ninety-four super soldiers wasn’t bad. Not bad at all. He’d saved the SSR from losing its most valuable possession to the enemy. Gilmore Hodge was a hero._

_And soon he would have ninety-three brothers-in-arms, as strong and fast as he was now. Which was good, the country needed them, needed all it could get. But what would Gilmore Hodge get, what would his thanks be, for being the first, the guinea pig? After all, he would have been the only one if it had gone horribly wrong. He would have been the only one to suffer the consequences, so… why should he not be the only one to reap the reward? He would still serve his country after all. No one would give more than him, no one could given more than he already had._

_Hodge remembered the shining, soaring feeling when the pain had stopped and he’d stepped out of the tank. He glanced up at the ceiling, but the intruder had smashed the security cameras. Dimly, Hodge could hear pounding and shouting outside the door, he still had a little time. Slowly, with as natural a movement as pouring away a beer gone flat, Hodge tipped the rest of the vials onto the floor and ground them to shards._

* * *

_Pittsburgh, PA 1942_

_Jean Reedy was no floozy and she was for sure no home wrecker, but that Captain America was just to die for, with those broad shoulders and that twinkly lady-killer smile. Every girl in the line—even the ones with fellas— cried into her pillow when he started making time with Rita Rathbone._

_But now here he was, all six-feet plus of him, leaning an arm the size of her head against the wall, fixing his full attention on her._

_“Nah, sugar,” Gil purred, stroking her bare upper arm with the other hand, “Me and Rita are all washed up, have been since Philadelphia. Said she needs someone a bit less—” he gestured to his uniform-clad chest, “You know. Can’t take the limelight, I guess.” Which didn’t sound like the Rita Jean knew, the Rita who got a new glamour shot taken every month. But he eclipsed everything, and when he took her ducked head as a nod of agreement she didn’t argue. “Swell. Pick you up at nine, be sure to wear something pretty.”_

_Rita’s eyes were suspiciously red-rimmed and puffy for someone who’d given the brush off to such a nice guy, and Jean felt a twinge of something that felt like looking at her reflection in a funhouse mirror—herself but not the way she wanted to look. And sure, Rita may have had better legs than Veronica Lake and hair the color of fresh honey, but she was a nice kid. There’d been that time she returned a girl’s heirloom brooch foolishly bet on a hand of five-card stud even though Rita had won fair and square. But heck, if anyone deserved to be happy it was the Captain, after everything he did for his country. And if Rita wasn’t making him happy, well—Jean was sorry, but she didn’t see any reason a person should stay with someone they didn’t really love._

_After a date which Jean assured herself was the best date of her young life, Gil walked her back to the girls’ quarters and paused to give her time to offer him a kiss. He grinned at her, showing his perfect teeth. It made her stomach roll with excitement. Rising up to her tiptoes, Jean pressed a kiss to his cheek, leaving a rosy lipstick print. She laughed._

_“You laughing at me doll?”_

_She shook her head, finding her compact and holding it up so he could see. “Look at you— with those pearly whites and baby blues. I just gave you the final touch.”_

_Gil laughed too then, harsh and barking. He wiped the lipstick away with his palm. “Now give me a kiss.”_

_“I just gave you one!” Jean protested playfully._

_Gil hauled her to him, her mouth still open in a good-natured smile, and pressed his mouth to hers, his tongue worming its way beneath her own. She was off balance, up on her tiptoes again only too far now to balance on her own. He kissed her for a good long while. Those huge arms held her against him tight enough to mash her breasts painfully against the hard wall of his torso. It was something she’d fantasized a thousand times: being caught up in those strong arms, maybe swung around in a circle and then held safe and close. She could feel her dress riding up to her thighs as he maneuvered her closer._

_He released her as suddenly as he’d grabbed her, and Jean rolled an ankle when, without warning, her weight was back on her own feet. She smiled at him automatically, a little dazed. He must be a heck of a kisser to make a girl feel so off-balance, not that Jean had a whole lot to compare it to. Gil pinched her cheek, hard, and she giggled and did not say ouch._

_“I should go in, it’s getting late.” The words hadn’t been a question in her head, but somehow, spoken aloud they were._

_Gil smirked and made an chivalrous show of holding the door opening for her. He goosed her as she stepped inside, making her jump and jar her rolled ankle. Hell—she hoped it’d be alright for dancing on tomorrow. “See you later, hot cakes,” he said and sauntered off._

_Jean crawled into her bed that night after icing her ankle and curled up. There was no reason to cry, she told herself, she was being silly. After all, Gil hadn’t really gotten fresh. He was just... spirited. Besides, as her grandma used to tell her- all men were wolves, you just wanted to find yourself the pack leader. She tried to call up that bubbly, butterflies feeling she’d had before their date, but the thing that crawled round and round in her belly now felt like nothing but one of those big ugly centipedes her brothers used to keep in jars in the cellar._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m eager to get to the reunion of Bucky & Steve but there’s going to be a bit more of Universe B aka The Land Without Steve before we get there. Bucky will be back in chapter 4. Upcoming chapters will have some dub-con/period typical misogyny/racism/antisemitism and general ickiness. Tags will be updated accordingly.
> 
> This fic is, in a very vague way, inspired by Philip Roth’s speculative fiction book The Plot Against America, about how the world would be different if the charismatic, popular, Nazi-sympathizing Charles Lindbergh had been elected president instead of FDR. Which makes this some kind of fanfic-AU-speculative fiction hybrid that I hope you guys enjoy.
> 
> Come find me at caligularib.tumblr.com


	4. Chapter 4

_USO Tour, 1942_

_When Captain Hodge tired of Jean after a week, even Jean herself assumed her tears were the result of a broken heart. It was an easier answer, an answer she understood from countless stories of jilted girls in books or movies. Because of course, no heroine was ever happy to see her man go. If she and Rita shared an something unspoken in their glances, neither of them mentioned of it._

_It wasn’t as though Gil had ruined her for other men. Jean had always been what other people would call fast, though she preferred to think of it as game—quick to fall for a guy, eager for whatever fun they could have together— and oh, how angry Gil had been when he figured out he wasn’t her first. Later there would be the same handprint bruises around the upper arms of girls who tried to put him off that Jean got for saying yes a little too readily. At least she could admit to herself that even if she missed the man, she did not miss the sex. It hadn’t hurt like that since the first time and Gil was never interested in her end of the proceedings. She’d had inconsiderate partners before but Gil was in a league of his own and that serum they all rhapsodized enabled him to go all night. It was such a waste, she sometimes let herself think._

_So Jean cried publicly for a while, and privately off and on at odd moments that she couldn’t seem to predict, and Gil moved on to Veda Collins and then to Ellen and Margo and Barbara. The crewmen for the show slapped him on the back and Senator Brandt called him a wolf but smiled fondly and a trifle enviously and jokingly asked him which pretty gal he’d have on his arm next week._

_When, outside Baltimore, Evelyn turned up with bruises across her shoulder that showed under her costume the director clucked at her that she should know better than to crack jokes about Hodge’s costume. Any fella was liable to feel uncomfortable about a thing like that, and it wasn’t as though he meant to hurt her._

_“You girls gotta understand,” the director said, “Captain Hodge risked his life undergoing that procedure and it made him, well— you’ve all seen him hoist that motorcycle. He just doesn’t know his own strength is all. Think how hard it must be for him.”_

_Three weeks later, when Joyce smiled and said, no thank you, she had a fiancé fighting in the Pacific theater, she tripped down a flight of stairs and broke her nose. That was in Richmond, where Gil raised fifty thousand dollars in war bonds._

_Senator Brandt’s assistant replaced all the engaged girls with new, single ones. They got a cheerful talking to about everyone pulling her weight and not letting personal concerns keep them from doing their part for the war effort. Hodge got an invitation to drink with the Senator and his cronies, and a brief rejoinder on the fragility of women. The next day at rehearsal when he pretended to drop the motorbike with Margo, Betty and Holly still on it, tossing it up and down, making them shriek and cling to each other._

_It wasn’t always like that. There would be weeks when Gil could charm the devil himself, just as thoughtful and obliging as you could please. He’d go steady with one girl long enough that the higher ups breathed a sigh of relief that he’d finally settled down now that he’d found the right one, and the rest of them felt like last week’s paper lining the birdcage since they’d each obviously just not been the right girl. But it never lasted._

_The air of the troop became steadily quieter, more subdued. Some girls stayed only a few weeks, the ones who stuck it out grew stretched rictus smiles that never faded. They avoided eye contact with each other and gave bland, praising quotes to the newsmen who came asking about what it was like working with Captain America. And then another new girl joined the troop._

_Billie Noonan came from an elite dance academy. She was pretty, sweet, talented and had as much sense as a box of rocks. Her schools had been girls only, run either by nuns or by strict aging European ballerinas. The girl fairly twinkled with joy at her new freedom and took to following Jean around like a duckling._

_“He took me to the movie house on 5th,” she gushed to Jean after her first date with Hodge, “The picture was so sad, I cried and cried but Gil was real sweet. He didn’t get sore at all. But I don’t think they should make such sad movies for kids. The world’s awful enough on its own, with the war and everything, dontcha think?”_

_She couldn’t warn Billie, couldn’t explain to her how to guard against a broken heart or a broken arm. Handling men like Gil Hodge was something you learned over a lifetime of walking on eggshells, smiling just the right way, keeping your voice soft and sometimes accepting that, even with all the precautions in the world, sometimes a girl was just going to get hit. Worse than that, Billie didn’t know how to handle men like Senator Brandt or his minions either. No one ever told her to count her blessings not her bruises. She didn’t know to keep her mouth shut and not make a stink. All men might not be poisonous, but they all had teeth, and even the truest believer could get bit. After intercepting a letter of complaint from Billie to Colonel Phillips, Brandt sent in a doctor who diagnosed her with nervous exhaustion and sent her to a sanitarium in Rockland for a rest._

_Without her little platinum blonde shadow, Jean began eyeing on the job columns, but she had no family to go home to and no steady guy. So she watched Hodge pass through the troop like a bad cold and tried to console herself with the news that they were finally going to Europe._

* * *

_Hydra Prison, Württemberg Germany- 1942_

_For the first time in a week the cell was no longer piss-freezing cold. Which only meant the smell was worse and the chill was just warm enough for Monty to pick the lice out of Bucky’s hair without needing to wear his big, heavy gloves._

_“Don’t you two look cozy?” quipped Jim, awake again. When they’d first been thrown together the six of them had tried to keep to a regular sleep schedule with one man to stand watch, but between the boredom, the unpredictable periods of artificial light and darkness that were forced upon them, and pure exhaustion the whole group had begun dozing at random more and more often. Morita pushed himself up and sat watching Falsworth and Barnes like they were the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen._

_“Oh yes, snug as two peas,” Monty paused in combing through Bucky’s tangled hair and pinned something between a thumb and forefinger, “Got one!” He held up a wriggling louse._

_Jim and Bucky made identical disgusted noises. “I can’t believe you used to collect these things for fun,” said Bucky._

_“This is a far cry from butterfly hunting I assure you,” Falsworth quipped._

_“Well hunt for my butterflies next, will ya?” asked Morita, scratching._

_Dugan stretched and spoke up, “Not me. If I have ‘em I don’t wanna antagonize ‘em.”_

_The sound of a dozen marching footsteps echoed over head._

_“Speaking of antagonizing…” said Bucky._

_Everyone was instantly on the alert, sitting in tense silence as a crew of their captors tramped down the corridor. Eight armed guards escorted an officer in an immaculate uniform and bespectacled little man past each cell, peering into each in turn. When they stopped outside Bucky’s his heart sank. The little man squinted through the bars then whispered something to his companion._

_The officer raised his truncheon in a gloved hand. “That one.” He indicated Gabe._

_A guard unlocked the cell door and barked at them to stand against the wall. For a moment the six men teetered on the edge of compliance. Then a guard seized Gabe by the collar and, like dominoes, the rest of them flew at them. It wasn’t a real skirmish; if anything the guards savored the chance to beat on their captives. And with every blow delivered, Gabe was being forced nearer and nearer the door._

_A truncheon strike to the knee drove Bucky to the ground. He wanted to stay down, his tired bones and his throbbing joints and his ringing head all begged for a rest. But Gabe was the smartest man of the whole lot of them, he had a family and a girl, and he knew every single Sherlock Holmes story and was never too tired or cross to tell one when asked. Bucky remembered the nights Monty spent coaching them all to do a proper Eton accent, with Gabe his best pupil, while Bucky’s Brooklynese and Dugan’s Boston drawl made them laugh themselves sick._

_Besides, Steve would want him to get up. Steve wouldn’t quit. Steve would see that he was out-gunned and still find a way to inflict maximum damage on his opponents. He may never have won, but anyone who fought Steve Rogers sure knew—through bite marks or gouged eyes or bruised balls—that he’d been in a fight. And then Bucky saw the bucket._

_Try as he might, afterward he couldn’t recall the chain of events. One minute he was lying with his cheek on the cold stone floor, the next he was pressed against the bars with the empty piss pail in his hands and the immaculate officer in his spotless uniform was on the other side, no longer looking so pristine. The little man in the lab coat had leapt back as Bucky charged and now stood, hands pressed to his mouth either to stifle a shriek or a laugh, his lab coat baring just a few splatters of shit along the hem. The men in the cells on either side roared with approval. Around him, Morita, Dugan and the others had frozen in shock. Even the guards didn’t move._

_Bucky let the pail slip from his suddenly numb hands. He couldn’t take his eyes off a trail of brownish liquid trickling off the Nazi officer’s collar and down his ruined lapel. Grimacing, the man whipped a handkerchief from a pocket and wiped his eyes. What he said next was in German but any idiot could guess what orders he was giving. The guard shoved Gabe back towards the others and before anyone could react, Bucky was being hauled out of the cell and marched away._

* * *

_Agent Carter was a breath of fresh air. She was the type of poised, ambitious woman Jean did not expect to like, or to like her, but her pure, unadulterated disdain for Captain Hodge and her total lack of intimidation was the most spectacular thing Jean had seen since Footlight Parade. And, miracle of miracles, Hodge seemed almost wary of her. It might simply have been that he assumed she was sleeping with Howard Stark, and powerful men listened to Howard Stark, but whatever the reason, Hodge treated her with the frustrated suspicion a vicious alpha dog might give a clever, dangerous cat._

_And again, miracle of miracles, Peggy Carter turned out to be alright. When she found one of the girls crying backstage, she quietly arranged for Hodge to be housed near the officers, on the opposite side of camp from the troop. He magically began to be extremely busy with PR film shoots._

_They finished rehearsal early one night and Jean found herself seated across from Agent Carter in the canteen. With a deep breath, Jean leaned conspiratorially over the table._

_“Miss Carter, I just wanna say it’s real nice having a lady officer around. Makes things so much nicer for all of us.”_

_Peggy smiled at her. “That’s kind of you, although actually I’m not an officer. I’m on loan from British intelligence at the moment.”_

_“Gee, that’s swell,” Jean tried to think of what to say next. She swallowed and played with her spoon._

_“Tell me—” Carter began, then floundered until Jean realized she was trying to recall her name._

_“It’s Jean,” she offered._

_“Thank you. Tell me, Jean, what is your opinion of Captain Hodge?”_

_Jean fidgeted, unsure how much to say in spite of Carter’s outward antagonism towards Hodge. “He’s a great man, a real hero.”_

_Peggy rolled her eyes. “Oh come now, it’s just us. We both know the man’s a brute.”_

_Jean avoided her eyes and continued to fiddle with her spoon. “You can say that again,” she muttered. “But there’s nothing anybody can do about it.”_

_Now it was Agent Carter’s turn to lean in closer and lower her voice. “You must come to me if he does anything untoward to you or any of the others. I don’t care if he let them pump him full of bloody orange juice, he has no right to treat you all as his personal harem.”_

_“I can’t ask you to get involved,” Jean shook her head, “You have your own career to look out for. And he’s got Phillips and them eating out of his hand.”_

_“Please,” said Peggy, “The least I should be able to do is protect the people in my own circle.”_

_Jean met her gaze and nodded. They smiled at each other._

_“Say,” Jean said, shaking off the solemnity of the previous moment, “Do you know where a girl can get a tube of lipstick? Mine ran out and they don’t like us using the stage makeup. Too orange for me anyway.”_

* * *

_A week later_

_There would be no more dangerous time to approach a man like Hodge. Jean knew that. After his humiliation the urge to strike out practically radiated off him and even the most subtle, sympathetic of helpmeets might antagonize him. But it had to be done. She found him pacing back and forth in the rain like an angry tiger._

_“That was awful, what those men did,” she began, “If you ask me they should all be court-martialed.”_

_Gil snapped his head in her direction. The veins in his neck and jaw working furiously, rain streaking down his beet-red face. “You’re damn right. Those bastards. You think they have any idea what I’ve done for them? How many bullets and tanks I’ve sent to save their sorry asses?”_

_“It’s a shame. Colonel Phillips or someone ought to tell them everything you’ve done for your country.”_

_He laughed. “Tell them? I’ll do more than tell them. I’m going to show that sorry pack of pansies. They’ll be damned sorry they ever booed Captain America.”_

_That was her opening. Jean’s heart began to pound and she tried not to stumble over her words, to keep the right amount of sympathetic admiration in her voice. “I bet you could. You could show them all.” Was it too much, was she too breathy, too overawed? Would he see through her? She went on, “You could save all those captured boys single-handed. That would show everyone.”_

_He seemed to realize who he was talking to for the first time, though he made no apologies for his language. “What would you know about it?”_

_“It’s all over the camp,” she shrugged, “These fellas are what’s left of the 107th. The rest got caught by the Germans.”_

_“Yeah,” he agreed sneering, “And who’s fault is that? Not mine, I wasn’t even here. They’ve got some nerve taking it out on me. If they weren’t so useless maybe they wouldn’t have lost. You’d never see me getting captured by any kraut that’s for sure.”_

_“But you can’t expect them to be as good a soldier as you, Gil.” Should she bat her eyelashes? Jean couldn’t tell. Gil flopped down heavily beside her on the steps._

_“How could they do it, Jeanie? They don’t even know me. I’m just as good as any of them.” A stranger would have melted, a stranger would have seen those full lips and sad eyes and gone all gooey over his kicked-puppy look. Jean herself had a pinprick of sympathy for him; it had been humiliating having rotten food and mud thrown at him. Then she thought of Billie, and Evelyn and Rita. She thought of how none of them were allowed to even talk to another man in a bar or dance hall for fear of upsetting Gil. She thought of all the crewmen and the Senator’s staff laughing about how the chorus girls were all gagging for Captain America and the pinprick faded._

_“‘Course you are. You’re better than all of them put together. You just have to prove it to them.”_

_“Sure. ‘Cause it’s that easy. They’re in a Nazi prison fifty miles from here. So how the hell am I supposed to get there?”_

_“That Mr. Stark has his own plane. You could make him take you.”_

_He chewed his lip, considering her words. Then he huffed, “Why should I? I don’t gotta prove anything to those grunts. Colonel Phillips picked me for Project Rebirth, didn’t he?”_

_Jean’s mind raced for a retort. “But think of how much they’ll love you. The man that saved the 107th. They’ll follow you anywhere. They might even make you a real captain.”_

_For a moment, the look in his eyes said that she’d ruined it, that she’d said something so bad she’d wear the reminder of it on her face or around her throat for days to come. Then she did bat her eyes at him, and laid her head softly on his shoulder. “You were meant for more than this,” she waved a vague hand at the stage, "No one else can to it but you." She waited, still as a bird, to see if he was going to let her little slip pass unremarked. He raised an arm above her then let it fall as a gentle pat on the head._

_“Yeah,” he agreed, “I am meant for more than this.” He pushed her off him and they rose to their feet. “Outta the way doll,” he gave her a swat on the butt a hair too hard for playfulness, “I’m a man on a mission.”_

_She watched him go, then ran on shaking legs to find Peggy and tell her that the plan had worked._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: War is hell. Peace can be hell too, under the right circumstances.
> 
> Let me know what you think.


	5. Chapter 5

_There was no way Bucky could withstand what was happening to him. He’d tried, as he was being dragged bodily away from his cell, but then he heavy metal doors opened before them and he saw what lay beyond. The rabbity little man in the lab coat tripped into the large, brightly lit and medicinal-smelling room, gesturing wildly for the guards to bring Bucky in._

_The officer, still clad in his piss-drenched uniform, remained lingering in the doorway. At the sight of his presence, the rabbity man’s face took on a slight pout like a child being shown a present he was forbidden to unwrap._

_“Herr Schmidt,” he wheedled, “Of course this scum deserves punishment, the harshest punishment, for his disrespect. But I must remind you that any damage to the specimen will inevitably delay my work— our work.”_

_“I need no reminding,” Schmidt answered and fixed an arctic, ball-shriveling gaze on Bucky, “You may begin straight away.” He turned to go, the perfect heel-turn marred somewhat by the squelching of his damp boots. “Oh, and doctor?” he called over his shoulder, “Results this time, yes?_ Timely _results.”_

_The doctor kowtowed Schmidt out the door. The instant the man was out of sight his round, ugly  
face broke in to a delighted grin. “Come on, come on,” he cried, waving a theatrical arm at the soldiers holding Bucky, “Got to get started right away.” They strapped a thrashing Bucky to an operating table. _

_“Anything else you require, Herr Zola?”_

_Zola shooed them away and leaned over Bucky who writhed against his cuffs. “Time is money,” Zola said in a ludicrous New York accent, “As the Yanks say.” He gave a shrill, vibrato laugh._

_It was hideous. Bucky felt his throat begin to constrict with bile, and terror and cries for his mother. And the man hadn’t even begun. Beneath his filthy fatigues Bucky’s body dripped with sweat, as wet as if he'd just stepped out of the bath. Beside him, Zola wheeled gleaming trays lined in neatly pressed white cloth and spread with tubes, and scalpels, probes and needles— a nightmare version of the tuxedo-clad waiter in a fancy joint, flourishing the best of everything before an honored guest. The fiend himself was practically soft-shoeing around the lab as he readied his tools and Bucky knew he was going to talk. He could feel the confessions, real and false, already lining up ready to scream to the world and his diminutive tormentor. No, Bucky Barnes did not think he could stand whatever was about to come._

_But Steve Rogers could. Steve Rogers could bear anything and do it with a blood-tinted smile. Come to think of it, this might not even be so very different from Steve’s experiences in the hospital when he was very young. He seldom spoke of it to Bucky and never to his mother for fear of upsetting her, but Bucky knew from long nighttime confidences that Steve’s earliest memories were of tables like this, of doctors and nurses poking and prodding his spine or his lungs._

If I were Steve… _the though wafted through his brain, chased by a glare of light reflecting off a set of steel pliers,_ If I were Steve I wouldn’t cry. I wouldn’t let on how scared I am. I’d tell them all to go fuck themselves. _A length of rubber tubing joined the tray._ No, no. I’d want to tell them to go fuck themselves, but that would be playing their game. If I were Steve, if I were Steve I wouldn’t give them anything. Not a damn thing. _Satisfied at last, Zola stooped over Bucky’s prone form, one rubber-gloved hand patted at Bucky’s brow. “Shall we begin?” he smiled._

_For the first time since he’d thrown the shit bucket at Schmidt, Bucky opened his mouth. “Sergeant James Barnes, 32557038.”_

* * *

_Howard Stark was exactly the kind of man that made Jean’s insides warm and soft and squirmy as restless puppy; the dark hair, the dimples, the smirk that said he was what Jean’s mama called no better than he should be. He was attractive and arrogant, in a way that was blessedly opposite the way Gil was attractive and arrogant. And she couldn’t appreciate a damned bit of it, not with what they had just done clouding up her brain. They—she, Peggy and Howard— had just dropped America’s golden boy in enemy territory, all alone and miles from help._

_“Hey kid, you’ve gotta relax,” said Stark patting her knee in a merely friendly way, “Even if this whole thing goes belly up you can count on me to keep your name out of it.” His New York accent and that cocky, genial tone stuck a chord in her for a moment and she thought of another brown-haired city boy she’d known what felt like a lifetime before. Jean shook her head. From his jacket pocket, Howard produced a flask. He sipped quickly before pressing it into her hand._

_“I’m in this too,” she said. “No Reedy ever let someone else take the fall for them and I’m not gonna start now. If HQ finds out what we did, I’ll take my medicine right alongside you two.”_

_“I doubt it will come to that,” Peggy broke in with her clipped, posh voice. “Captain Hodge will come back triumphant or not at all. If he’s successful, you can be certain he’ll not be in a hurry to share credit. If not… no one is likely to know our part in this.”_

_“I know, but that’s not what’s worrying me. You sure we did the right thing Agent Carter?” Jean asked, “At the time I just wanted him away from me and the other girls, but now I keep thinking… we sent him out there to die. How can that be right?”_

_“The guy was a human time-bomb with a two-inch fuse and a two inch— ” Howard gave them each a knowing look. He handed the flask to Peggy and went on, “Well, let’s just say he wasn’t going to change for the better anytime soon. You can ask Peg here if you don’t believe me, but I’ve had my suspicions about how the rest of that serum got destroyed. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but since then I’ve seen more of our mutual friend and he’s not much for sharing the spotlight.”_

_“He’s not much for sharing anything by the look of it,” said Peggy._

_“Gil was no good, I’m not arguing that. But what if he coulda helped end win the war? What if more people die because he’s not here?”_

_Peggy placed a hand on Jean’s shoulder. It was warm, the nails clean and trim, but with gun callouses on the palm. “Captain Hodge never saved a single soul, his only redeeming grace was his ability to raise revenue for the War Department. I don’t wish to sound cold, but he’ll make as much if not more as a martyr.”_

_“You can say that again,” muttered Howard._

_They sat in silence for a moment, each following their own winding thoughts. Peggy sat back, took a long swallow of whiskey and capped the flask. Her fingers drummed restlessly on its flat metal side. She stared at the radio transmitter as though she could will it to speak to them.  
“My one fear now is what sort of man Captain Hodge will be if he does return.”_

* * *

_There were now so few things Bucky could control that he could count them one one hand. One: he could open or close his eyes (most of the time). Two: he could wiggle his fingers, toes, ears and nose. None of these actions was anymore useful than a one-armed trapeze artist with an itchy ass, as his grandfather used to say. Three: he could breathe or hold his breath as he pleased (most of the time). It was fine, it was plenty. Steve Rogers spent months on his back, too weak to sit up, Bucky at his side taking slow breaths in tandem with Steve’s rattly ones. Steve had been reduced to these three small powers and he hadn’t given up or gone crazy. Of course, you could argue that Steve had been crazy from the start._

_The point was, Steve hadn’t surrendered to it, the gaping terror when they pumped him full of things that stung or stretched him into positions his bones fought like fire, or left him alone for hours and hours. Bucky played little games with himself. He named all the guys on the Dodgers, their positions and stats. He shuffled and reshuffled the list of movie stars he’d most like to sleep with. When James Cagney snuck in behind Barbara Stanwyck and Myrna Loy he switched to reciting his catechism. That was pretty dull and he went back to baseball, tracing each player’s career stats as far back as his mind could go. And when nothing else worked, he replayed conversations he’d had with Steve._

_The times it was at it worst, when his body convulsed and fluids he couldn’t name went in or came out, when it got so bright he shut his eyes only to find that the glare was somehow inside his head— then he had only one, pitifully short exchange with Steve. It played on a loop and it was the only thing he could always hear above all the other, awful sounds._

“Are you scared, Stevie? Tell the truth.”

“Yeah. But I’m mad too, real mad.”

“Me too. Scared and mad for you.”

“I miss anything good out there today?”

“Nah. Not much.”

* * *

_Just because walking was physically effortless didn’t mean it was fun and the serum, he was learning, didn’t prevent him from growing footsore after the twelfth mile or so. Hodge thanked the Lord for a passing convoy headed in the general direction of his destination. It was nothing at all to catch up to the truck’s thirty miles an hour and vault himself silently into the back. It was even less to snap the necks of the three men riding there and swipe their guns. The rest of the ride to the prison, with the truck rattling along uneven roads and the three young corpses jerking at each pothole, he spent staring out the back flap or down at his new guns._

_Those men had been right. They couldn’t have been right, but they had been right. He was laughable, he knew nothing of this, nothing of miles and miles of strange land with people who talked in funny languages and wanted him dead. He knew the insides of train cars, the wings of theaters, the dining clubs where he met important people who were awed by him. It didn’t change anything, their being right. If anything he hated those men more for driving him out here on his own, after all they didn’t go it alone, did they? They kept in groups, watched each other’s backs. If he had a group behind him, fellas listening to his commands and witnessing his courage, then that nugget of fear wouldn’t have lodged so deep in his chest. He was sure of it._

_The prison was a disappointment. Or rather, the prisoners were a disappointment. They didn’t know who Captain America was and they were a tired, shell-shocked mass of men. Not a one started a cheer for the man who was liberating them. They perked up with guns pressed into their hands from the guards he’d killed and the rest quickly found pipes and makeshift clubs and took to the work of escape eagerly._

_“Boys, this place is officially under new management.” He liked that line, he oughta give it to one of the screenwriters for the Captain America serials. Nobody appreciated his wit, but they seemed to get the gist of it._

_Hodge moved down the line of cells, throwing doors open, letting men stream out. He came to one and paused. The five men inside were pressed against the bars, straining to see what the commotion was in the dim cell block. One of them was a Jap. Hodge unlocked the door and held it open at arm’s length._

_“Alright lads,” the tall, slender one said in a posh accent, “Let’s be off then.” They filed out after him._

_“Not you,” Hodge jerked the door closed when the Jap stepped forward to leave. “Captain America doesn’t save Japs. I’m here for Americans, get me?”_

_The man shook his head. “I’m from Fresno,” he protested. Hodge ignored him._

_A hand landed on Hodge’s shoulder and he seized it, wrenching its owner against the bars of the cell._

_“Whoa, hold on!” It was the big, red-haired man. His voice was pure Boston. “Jim’s one of us, we been here long enough to vouch for that.”_

_“I, myself, am not American, nor is my friend Jacques here,” added Silver Spoon, “Surely you won’t leave a fellow countryman behind? Believe me Captain, we’re all on the same side.” Behind him the darky and the little man waited tensely. Why were they fighting him on this? He was their liberator._

_Five pairs of watchful, expectant eyes trained on Hodge. He still had half the block to get to, and that wasn’t even considering the rest of the Nazi stronghold. Hodge released Big Red and shoved the cell door open a few inches, forcing the man inside to leap back to avoid being struck. Unmoving, Hodge let the man squeeze through the opening and shimmy past Hodge’s own bulk. Once free, he fell into place beside his companions and they melted into the streaming line of escaping men._

_Now there was cheering, now there was laughter and whooping rising above the insistent blaring alarms. It wasn’t enough. He needed to march into their camp like a Roman general with legions and tributes, his glory undeniable. Hodge seized a passing soldier by the lapels. “Where can I find the officers?”_

_The man stared at him dumbly and Hodge began to shake him. “Who’s in charge here? Where can I find the Nazi bastards?”_

_“Upper level— I think,” the man stammered, “That’s where they take the guys that don’t come back.”_

_Roughly Hodge released him and turned, wading through the crowd of men to the stairway._

* * *

_The man on the table looked dead and Hodge was nearly out the door and on to the next room when the guy turned his head. His face was green under the glaring light and the room itself smelled sickeningly familiar to Stark’s Brooklyn lab. The man himself smelled of piss and chemicals and unwashed human._

_“Sarg…n Jame Barnes, 325…” His voice was hoarse. He blinked stupidly at Hodge. More out of reflex than compassion, Hodge tore the cuffs off him._

_“Stevie?” the man slurred, “Thought you were smaller.”_

_Hodge glanced around at the scientific paraphernalia, the tubes and beakers and electrodes. Lab Rat struggled to sit up, his head lolling. The whole building pounded with noise; running feet, gunshots, the constant wail of the alarm. Something, somewhere must have been on fire because the air was growing thick and hot. Lab Rat hoisted himself off the table with an effort and nearly collapsed as his legs gave way. Hodge caught him under the arms, and booked it. Christ, he’d had no goddamn plan, had he? And those stupid bastards had taken his lack of command and run with it. It was a win, the prison was overrun, but there was no way now that he would find whoever was in charge here. They were probably long gone at this point and Hodge would have to settle for dragging home a trail of dirty, weary foot soldiers. And what had the krauts been doing in that lab?_

_Ahead of them, from the end of the corridor, a small figure was trotting towards them. Hodge squinted, trying to make out the man’s face amidst the smoke. As he came closer, Lab Rat’s grip on his arm spasmed, clenching Hodge in a death grip. They were close enough that he could feel the man’s breath catch in his chest. Whoever he was, this bespectacled pipsqueak frightened a US soldier twice his size. And then he saw— lab coat, beneath his overcoat the man was wearing a lab coat. He’d been heading towards the lab. Without hesitation, Hodge dropped the injured soldier and charged the little man. Answers, that man would have answers._

_Pipsqueak scuttled for the metal plank bridge, inches ahead of Hodge._

_“Oh no you don’t—” Hodge grunted, throwing himself after him. Too late, the bridge began to retract, stranding Hodge on the opposite side of a literal river of fire. Sensing movement, he whipped his head around and spotted Lab Rat limping towards him. He turned his attention back to the deck where his target stood safely out of his reach. There was another man with him, operating the bridge. Tall, slim, the red armband bright against his dark uniform, with a posture that Hodge could describe as commanding even at this distance._

_The man stalked cooly to the end of his section of bridge and threw his arms wide as if in welcome._

_“Captain America, how exciting! I’m a great fan of your films,” he called, “So they managed it without Dr. Erskine after all. Not exactly an improvement but still— impressive.”_

_“You got no idea,” Hodge spat at him._

_The man’s laughter echoed across the breach. “Haven’t I?”_

_Hodge itched with the desire to fight him, confusion and anger tasted bitter and metallic in his mouth._

_“No matter what they told you,” the man shouted, “I was his greatest success!” He clawed at his collar with gloved hands and then— no, not his collar. He was clawing at his throat. And as he did so the human face peeled away like a peach skin revealing the monstrosity beneath. Hodge’s head spun. “You will admit it, Captain. You and I have left humanity behind! Embrace it proudly, as I do!”_

_And then he shoved his small companion into the elevator and was gone. Hodge couldn't think. Unconsciously he raised a hand to his face, sweaty palm pressing into his unshaven cheek. Was there something under there? Something like him?_

_“This way, we’ve gotta get out!” The soldier was tugging at him, leading him down the stairwell. The doors before them were sealed shut and Hodge was almost grateful for something to smash. Outside, the night air was cold and bracing. Freed soldiers scattered across the road watching the prison burn. Hodge slumped against an unmanned tank and slid to the ground. Someone sat softly beside him._

_"You saved my life,” said the injured soldier. Hodge nodded. The man stuck out a hand that shook only a little. “James Barnes, or Bucky to my friends.” They shook hands._

_“Gil Hodge— Captain Gilmore Hodge.”_

_Others were beginning to notice them, Hodge in his USO tour uniform now torn and singed. They surrounded him, clapping and cheering. Everything just as he imagined it in the publicity reel in his head. And completely wrong. As the men rallied, organizing into groups and arranging the wounded in the remaining jeeps and trucks, Hodge’s thoughts crept back to the man on the bridge. He saw again the man’s hideous, inhuman face, heard those words._

Left humanity behind. You and I. Left humanity behind. Embrace it. 

_Dread solidified in his gut. He wasn’t the only one, not unique, not special. But that man was evil, clearly. He, Gil, was good. He was the archangel with the fiery sword. Above humanity, perhaps, but still invested in them, still of this world. Yes. That felt right. Until now he hadn’t thought much about his new gifts apart from the attention and little pleasures they afforded him. But he wasn’t some circus strongman, he was Captain America. And he would embrace it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have this headcanon that of all the male movie stars at the time Bucky would crush on [James Cagney](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a4/James_cagney_promo_photo.jpg): short, sarcastic, often playing guys who get into brawls at the drop of a hat
> 
> Come find me on [tumblr](http://caligularib.tumblr.com/)


	6. Chapter 6

_Afterwards, Bucky remembered little about the march back to camp. He spent that strange night and day drifting somewhere below the euphoria of the other men, clinging as close to the man who had saved him as he could without looking unnatural. The first moment he’d seen Captain Hodge, Bucky had been so close to Steve, his mind full of his friend’s voice, his touch. They looked nothing alike, but he could have sworn it was Steve who was coming to save him, who was supposed to save him. And then, when it wasn’t… everything shifted a few degrees off center, he felt like he’d bitten into an apple and tasted peach._

_Hodge was watching him. Bucky knew he was paranoid, seeing creeping, leering little men in every bush— but Hodge was watching him. It wasn’t a pitying look, and for that Bucky was infinitely grateful. Whatever this man wanted of him, fine. At least it would keep him from looking over his shoulder every few yards. At dark they made camp, and there was a clamor as blankets and MREs were handed out, men offering Hodge their chocolate ration or cigarettes. It felt like hours before the din faded to the crackling of fires, men talking softly to one another as they stared up at the stars for the first time in weeks._

_“I was coming back for you,” Hodge spoke, startling Bucky more than if God himself had spoken to him from the burning bush._

_“How’s that?”_

_“Back there. I had to try to get him, the leader. You see that, right?” There was an edge to Hodge’s voice, something shrill and almost frightened. “But I wasn’t gonna leave you behind.” It puzzled Bucky for a moment, but then he understood._

_“’Course. I know that. And I’d never— what he said, that thing with his face— I guess, I know how to keep my mouth shut is what I’m tryin’ to say.” He studied Hodge’s face in the firelight, lined and pensive. There must be something Bucky could do to distract him, lighten his burden. “Feel free to tell me to take a hike, but I gotta ask: you got one of those?” He mimed the face-peeling._

_Hodge glanced sideways at him. “I’ll tell you if you tell me what they were doing with you on that table.”_

_The words were like a blow knocking all the air out of Bucky. He was sitting down, but suddenly his head swam with dizziness. “Yeah, I get it. None of my goddamn business. Sorry.”_

_“No, no- I mean it, I’m curious. You could barely stand back there, and now we’ve been walking for miles and you look…. stronger. They weren’t interrogating you in a room like that, so what did they do?”_

_Bucky swayed a little, his MRE sitting like clay in his gut. Hodge’s tone gentled and he went on, “Here, I’ll go first: my face is one-hundred percent human, every square inch.” He waited a minute for Bucky to speak and then prompted, “Your turn.”_

_“I… I don’t know.”_

_“Bullshit.” Bucky flinched at the contempt in Hodge’s voice._

_“No! Honest, I don’t know what they did. How could I?” He was horrified to feel himself on the verge of tears; shameful humiliating tears in front of this man who had saved him and now was suddenly so angry with him._

_“Yeah yeah,” Hodge sighed, all signs of hostility withdrawn, “Cut the waterworks. I know you’re not exactly an egghead.”_

_Bucky was too exhausted to take offense. The desperate fear that had sustained him during Zola’s experiments had ebbed into a numb despair, sapping him of everything but the desire to lie down and sleep for the rest of the war._

_In the morning, he awoke stiff and sore but not nearly as sore as he should have been. The red weals where he’d been strapped down had scabbed and faded overnight, leaving bands of pink new skin at his wrists, ankles and throat. A stab of fear seized him— Hodge mustn't see, mustn’t know. Bucky scrambled to get his pack together without waking Hodge and staggered away from their little campfire._

_He was on the very outskirts of the camp when he heard his name._

_“Barnes! Hey Barnes!” It was Morita, bless his smart mouth and his clever medic’s fingers. “Jesus, Bucky- you look like shit. Come and sit down.”_

_Bucky folded gratefully down beside Jim. Dugan and Falsworth stretched out snoring a few feet from them, Dernier curled up like a pillbug in the middle. Looking at them, Bucky remembered all those night in their cell, lying a wake and deciphering the nonsense Morse messages his companions made as they shifted in their sleep. How could he have been so goddamned happy then, and not known it? A light hand grazed Bucky’s back: Morita patting him with awkward kindness. The weight of the smaller man’s intense, worried gaze burned. Eye contact was suddenly impossible and Bucky’s head drooped onto his knee._

_“Gabe?” he asked, dreading the answer._

_“He’s fine, went to water the petunias a minute ago. Boy, will he be happy to see you.”_

_“What are you fellas doing all the way out here?” mumbled Bucky._

_Morita shrugged. “Oh, just- keeping our noses clean. You know us.”_

_“If you say so.” Bucky raised his head, regarding Morita. “Jim?” he asked hesitatantly, “You got any bandages to spare- I don’t wanna take one if someone needs ‘em but…” he rubbed the pink band at his throat where his collar could not quite hide it._

_“Sure, anything for Sergeant Barnes,” said Jim and blessedly asked no questions about how Bucky had come by his injuries or why he needed them bandaged when they were nearly healed. He was a quick, competent medic and had Bucky carefully wrapped before the others began to stir. There was, as Morita predicted, much rejoicing when the others woke and found Bucky returned to them but it was a subdued rejoicing. Even Dum Dum noticed the Sergeant bite his nails bloody and sway back from their first joyous outburst like a sunflower with a broken stalk. They redirected their talk around him, a safety net of everything-shit-as-usual-but-less-shit-than-before._

_“Where the bloody hell is Jones?” griped Falsworth, “That pitiful excuse for coffee’s going to be even worse if we let it burn.”_

_There were assenting grumbles from the rest of the group but no one actually suggested sharing out what was left of the grub without Gabe. In the meantime Bucky sat, silent but content, letting the others’ banter and griping drown out the roaring in his head. Most of the men in the impromptu camp were up and at ‘em when Gabe finally came striding back to their little circle._

_“Did ya get lost there, Jonesy?” demanded Dum Dum with raised eyebrows._

_Gabe dropped to a crouch between him and Dernier. “Nah, I just— well I’ll be damned. Sarge!” His face broke into that trademark Jones grin that covered about half his face._

_“Hiya Gabe,” said Bucky. He held Jones’ open, delighted gaze for as long as he could stand._

_“Well thank the good Lord, we’re all safe for another day and I don’t have to write your mama and tell her how her only son went MIA ‘cause he poured a bucket of shit on some kraut officer.”_

_“Here, here!” chimed in Falsworth, “Now, what do we all make of this Captain America fellow?”_

_A sharp crease cut Gabe’s face for a moment and was gone before Bucky could even be sure he’d seen it. “I ran into him on my way back here this morning,” he said, “Mighty popular guy.”_

_“And you had to wait around to get his autograph?” teased Dernier, “This is why you kept us all waiting?”_

_Gabe shook his head ruefully. “He… he needed a bit of a hand, not used to roughin’ it. He may say he’s knocked out ole’ Adolf a hundred times but if you ask me that man has seen about as much real action as a church pew.”_

_“So it took you twenty minutes to help him open an MRE and fold a blanket?” Jim’s voice was dry and not quite amused._

_Gabe took a long swallow of coffee before answering with a shrug, “Him and a few others. He was in some deep conversation with some of the guys, didn’t want them interrupted so he asked me to pack up camp for ‘em.”_

_“What were they talking about?” Bucky asked._

_“Aw, nothin’ really. Just bullshit.”_

_They broke camp themselves a few minutes later and Bucky matched his pace to Gabe’s. Were they looking at him a little oddly since his return? Was he behaving oddly? Or was it something physical, like a brand visible to everyone but him? The whole unit was hedging towards the hysterical, all of them strung out on leftover joy and terror and battle-fury. Gabe had always been the steadiest of his ragtag former cellmates. Slowly, he felt less and less like the skeleton at the feast._

_“What’d you make of Hodge?” he asked when everyone had settled into his own pace and private thoughts or conversations. Gabe gave him a blank look. “Gilmore Hodge, Captain America.”_

_“That his name?” Gabe smirked, “Explains a lot.” He paused a moment and then said, “What should I make of him? He did something pretty damn heroic, guess that makes him a hero. Like they’re saying.”_

_“Maybe.”_

_Gabe had a way of giving a guy a few quick, soft looks— sizing a man up without making him squirrelly. He looked at Bucky that way now. “You don’t think so?” A beat and he repeated himself, “You don’t think so.” And that time it wasn’t a question._

_Bucky shrugged. “Can’t say.”_

_“And you’d better not say,” Gabe’s voice was low and hard, “Pardon my phrasing but unless its to say ‘gee whiz that Captain Hodge sure is a national treasure and a goddamn prince among men’ you just keep your trap shut. ‘Cause those boys he was talking to were looking at him like he was either Carole Lombard or the second coming.”_

_“Dugan told me he tried to leave Jim behind.” Bucky looked directly at Gabe for the first time since their initial meeting. “What did he really say to you this morning?”_

_“Nothin’ I haven’t heard from a hundred white fellas who haven’t saved my life. We’ll be back at base soon and then he’ll have to answer to Phillips like everybody else. Let him throw his weight around while he has the chance, it’s not worth losing any sleep over.”_

_And it wasn’t. At least, not then._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come find me on [tumblr](http://caligularib.tumblr.com/)


	7. Chapter 7

_For all his jawing about the curse of schoolwork and needling Jones and Falsworth for their fancy college learning, Bucky wasn’t dumb. And neither were the men he befriended for the simple fact that dullards bored him silly. Some of them may have been quicker than others, the army hardly turning away a fella for some missed grades, but generally the grunts of the 107th that Bucky’d palled around with before Azzano all had their heads on straight and could tell their ass from their elbow in the dark. Before Azzano Bucky had listened to these men, considered their input (bawled at him in the heat of the moment and often laced with obscenity) as carefully as if they’d been discussing it over afternoon tea. He trusted them; their judgment, their courage had kept him alive._

_He should trust them now. Why didn’t he trust them now?_

_Red Charlie, skinny and nimble as a greyhound, was forever breaking formation to trot back and forth along the lines chatting with whoever didn’t shoo him away. He was Cajun and apparently knew every poem ever written in English or French, especially the dirty ones. His popularity with his fellow soldiers had skyrocketed when the effect of even the most garbled Baudelaire on the local French girls became apparent. But it wasn’t poetry Red Charlie spouted as they trekked back to base._

_“It’s like the ripples on a pond, see? From one stone reaching out and out and out,” he gushed to the line of men ahead of Bucky and Gabe, “One action can reach out ad infinitum—forever— so Captain Hodge- he’s the pebble, and we’re the ripples. And everyone we save, we’re their pebbles and so on.”_    
_The men nodded their understanding. “Whoever saves one life saves the world entire,” added Sonny Soloway._

_“Bingo!” cried Charlie, “Give the man a cigar!”_

_“More like six hundred worlds,” said a third man Bucky didn’t recognize._

_Red Charlie darted in between Sonny and the man, clapping them each on the shoulder from his lesser height. “Six hundred-odd men saved and all of us out fighting the good fight, Krauts falling to our tanks, ladies falling to our charms!” He gave a little hop and hoisted himself up, supporting himself on his companions’ shoulders, throwing his head back so that his freckled neck was stretched long and he bellowed, “Neither shall thy name anymore be Gilmore Hodge, but your name shall be Captain America!”_

_Heads turned to look at him, men clapping and cheering. Beside Bucky, Dernier rolled his eyes. “Good thing there ain’t any wild flowers handy, or they’d be strewing the path in front of him,” he muttered._

_Sonny and the other man exchanged a look and sidestepped in perfect unison so that Red Charlie dropped and scrambled to find his feet. The cheering changed to laughter and he took a mocking bow before scampering off closer to the head of the line._

_Bucky’s head ached. He felt as though they were marching up a steep slope rather than along relatively flat terrain, the ground seeming to fill his vision more and more, only able to follow a straight line by walking in the tank treads._

_“They sound as crazy as those bloody brown shorts used to,” quipped Falsworth in a hushed tone._

_“It’s just big talk. Once they get some booze to mellow ‘em and the COs to put the fear of god into ‘em things’ll settle down,” said Dugan._

_Bucky thought of the fine line of Red Charlie’s neck, his fingers stained with ink from scribbling in his journal, how he had given a little refugee boy the goose eggs he’d found as a Christmas present just to make the boy smile. He remembered the way Soloway’s shoulders shook at night when he though no one could see after they’d marched through the haunted remains of some postage-stamp sized town with a guttural name, from where some never-met uncle used to mail Sonny birthday cards. Bucky didn’t know if he was more angry or afraid because fighting had been hell before all this, now it was hell under a heavy fog and for the first time his compatriots felt like strangers. He wanted to gather Gabe and Jim, Falsworth, Dernier, Dugan and anyone else who had that suspicious, knowing glint in his eye and have them all link arms, circle the wagons and keep close watch for signs of growing madness._

_But, of course, he was over-reacting. These were good men; clever, careful, reasonable men. Naturally they were in awe of Hodge. It was Bucky who wasn’t seeing things clearly. Back at camp, after a rousing cheer of “Let’s hear it for Captain America!” that he heard himself echoing in a hollow voice, he sat on the bleachers for nearly an hour knowing that he must report to medical but uncertain how to straighten his legs, make them bear his weight, find the way to the field hospital or even which of those tasks should come first._

_“Ups-a-daisy Barnes,” said Jim, hauling Bucky up by the armpits, “Let’s get you to the doc.”_

_Bucky obediently kept pace with Jim, matching each step to one of Morita’s shorter ones.  “Strange being back, ain’t it?” Jim asked in a tone that did not demand an answer, “Think I must forgot there was really another world out there. Not just abstract, like heaven or something, but a real place I’ve been before.”_

_“Some of them…” Bucky began hesitantly. He didn’t know if he felt like talking or not, but Morita was being kind and making noise instead of leaving Bucky to listen to the silence roaring in his head. It occurred to him that the polite thing would be to make noise back in case Morita needed it too. “The ones who got away, who never saw it— it never existed for them. However much we tell, if we tell anything, they won’t understand. So it never happened at all. Just like somewhere there’s a camp where people are still locked up like we were, only worse— and us here, it’ll never be real for us unless we go there and see.”_

_He looked at Morita. “We’re all in boxes, Jim. We move from box to box, room to room like that story. Did you read that story, in school? The one where the Prince has a big party and every room is a different color and when you’re in the blue room nothing else exists, and in the yellow room and the green room. My folks, they’re in a Brooklyn-room, and none of this will ever be real for them. Your folks—”_

_“My folks are in Gila River.”_

_Bucky shut his eyes, stepped wrong now that he wasn’t looking and nearly stumbled. Jim caught him._

_“Shit Jimmy, I’m sorry. Don’t listen to me, I’m just running my mouth.”_

_“Relax Barnes, I’m not sore. I know what you’re trying to say, although it’s a damn good thing you’re not the one doing those fireside chats. If you were ever articulate enough to get your point across you’d depress everyone so much the whole country’d line up and drown themselves in the nearest river.”_

_“I feel like a heel. Brooklyn’s Brooklyn, my family’s fine. Yours— seems like we’re just doing what the guys we’re fighting are doing, just puttin’ a different name on it.”_

_Morita shrugged, “Shikata ga nai.”_

_“What’s that mean?”_

_“Means I’ll go home and bitch about my country when I’m sure I’ll still have a country to go home and bitch about.” They paused outside the medical tent. “You can join me if you like. Fresno’s a nice town.”_

* * *

_He had not believed he would ever dance with a girl again. But earlier he had, with a tall, elfin-faced girl who spoke so softly he couldn’t hear her over the music. Her posture was stiff with tension rather than breeding, and her breathing threatened to become panicky at any moment. Her eyes roaming nervously around the dance floor. She’d come in alone and alighted next to him at the bar, and Bucky had sensed in her a kindred need to hold on to someone for a while. Throughout their dance she kept her eyes somewhere between his collar and his shoes, and he felt heads turing away a moment before he caught them staring. She had excused herself when the song was done, vanishing into the crowd and leaving him feeling no more certain of where he really was._

_It was like Morita had said, strange to have two such vastly different places existing simultaneously. There was the bar, dimly lit because of the blackout, but humming with life and music, people celebrating their continued existence with dancing and drinking and the promise of sex; dark corners warm with joy and then somewhere miles away there was Kreichsberg and the Hydra base, the lab with its own lights always dim unless someone was working and then they were blinding, silent unless he filled it with screams, immaculate unless he soiled it with his blood or drool or piss. They couldn’t both be real. At least, they could both exist in his mind at the same time. Not yet. Bucky clung to the bar, swallowed glass after glass of lovely, dark whisky and looked for things about this place that he could not have dreamed up._

_He could easily have dreamed up Herbert the barman. Herbie’s nose was too perfect, his accent was wrong and he was too suave with the girls even now that they couldn’t spare him a glance with the soldiers around, but he was so horribly like Steve, if Steve had lived to see twenty-three. He could have dreamed up Jean, of all the people from Brooklyn Heights to find in a USO company. She looked more natural in her red and white and blue sequins than she ever had in street clothes, at least to Bucky’s eyes, and if he was going to dream her it made sense that he’d dream her at her most glamorous. Here, though, she’d changed into a simple navy dress so maybe he wasn’t imagining things._

_The woman behind her was someone Bucky had never seen before— a brunette with firm cheekbones and soft lips and hair like an angel from one of Steve’s old art books— and Bucky had a sizable enough mental library of beauties to composite someone close to her in looks, but no way could he have conjured that regal bearing of hers. Of course when she spoke it was with the sweetly deadly English vowels that reminded him sitting in a darkened theater listening to Olivia de Havilland telling Basil Rathbone where to get off. The two women approached him, Jean pleased and a little shy, her friend calmly appraising. That, certainly, was something he’d orchestrate for himself in a dream._

_“You look swell Peggy. Jeanie- who’s your friend?”_

_And there it was. He would not have imagined Howard Stark, no matter what chemicals Zola pumped him full of._ That Bucky would take to the bank. And it was unmistakably Howard Stark who had sashayed up behind the two women, smiling broadly at them all.

_“James Barnes,” Jean said not taking her eyes off him. She held out a hand to him and it wasn’t until he took it that Bucky really remembered that there were people in the world who had soft, clean hands with trim painted nails._

_“Hi Jean,” he smiled and when had smiling become effortless again?_

_“These are my friends,” she gestured, “Agent Margaret Carter of the SSR and Howard Stark.”_

_“Ma’am,” Bucky’s brain helpfully supplied the right response. He nodded to Stark who grinned back at him before bowing to Agent Carter with a theatrical flourish. She rolled her eyes and allowed herself to be swept onto the dance floor._

_“Bucky Barnes,” Jean couldn’t stop shaking her head, “Boy are you a sight for sore eyes soldier.”_

_“Back at ya,” said Bucky._

_Awkward silence fell between them for a moment. “It was nice of you to dance with Willa, she’s having a tough time of it lately.”_

_“Willa?” Bucky looked at her blankly._

_“Willa Dyer, the blonde you were dancing with. I saw you two when I came in.”_

_“Oh,” Bucky tried to process the information, “Sounds familiar- she’s a nurse, right? Isn’t she engaged to one of the boys?”_

_There was another awkward pause. “She was.” Jean began twisting her bracelet in agitation. “But there was a… a misunderstanding. She went out a few times Captain Hodge before we knew what happened to you all. Nothing happened you couldn’t tell your priest about but her fiancé didn’t like it. He broke things off and he’s been spreading it all over that she was two-timing him.”_

_“Well wasn’t she?" Bucky tried for joking, how did people sound when they were joking? "Don’t think I’d be too happy to hear my gal was making time with someone else while I was locked in some Nazi hellhole.”_

_“Oh use your goddamn head, Barnes,” Jean snapped, “As if a girl could turn down Captain America and expect not to get shipped to the back of beyond the next day. And that’s if she’s lucky. You’re smarter than that, or anyway you used to be.”_

_“You’re right, sorry. I didn’t think.” They looked at each other, wanting to be comfortable again._

_Bucky asked, “Tell me about the Heights, do they have anything new at Coney Island? Did the Foley kids win the Halloween parade again? How many cats does old Mrs. Delia have now? Tell me all the dumb little things that’ll bore your fancy friends to tears.”_

_Jean looked pained. “I’ve been on tour Buck, for the last few months. I wrote you about it. Guess you didn’t get my letters, huh?”_

_“Not since you left Buffalo. But hey, tell me about the tour then. Tell me everyplace you’ve been. What are the girls wearing in Atlanta?”_

_Again there was an uneasy look on Jean’s face. Her voice lost its chatting-to-an-old-friend quality and sounded careful, scripted. “It’s been great. We’ve been all over the country, raising money. The girls are real nice, the folks in every town we go to are always happy to see us and… Captain Hodge._

_“Right,” Bucky said, “You girls— and he was the headliner. He knocked out Hitler.”_

_Jean snorted into her gin and tonic and just like that they were old friends again. “More like knocked out poor old Jerry. Who doesn’t even look like Hitler without the wig and silly mustache.”_

_“Still looks like he’s quite the showman.”_

_“I’ll let you in on a secret,” Jean leaned conspiratorially across the table, “When we came out here for the 107th, he absolutely flopped.”_

_“Flopped?”_

_“Like a wet noodle. They hated his whole song and dance, thought he was the phoniest thing on two legs. It was awful, guys booing and throwing mud. Hodge got so mad, I thought he’d blow his top.”_

_“How come he didn’t?”_

_Jean’s smile was proud but her answer never came as Hodge and a small crowd of hangers-on descended on their table._

_“Come on Jean, dance with me!” It was a good-natured order and the crowd echoed their approval. Hodge’s eyes flicked over Barnes with disdain but he was enjoying his magnanimity. “You don’t mind if I steal your gal, do ya Barnes?” He pinched the soft flesh of Jean’s upper arm hard enough that she couldn’t stifle a flinch, then followed it with a gentler pinch to her cheek and a winning smile. “I promise to bring her back in one piece.”_

_This must be how Steve felt all the time, Bucky thought. He could see the fight coming, see the inevitability of it looming up on him and see exactly how and why he would lose. But it had to be fought all the same. He rose from his seat half a minute too late to stop Hodge from leading Jean to the dance floor. A hand took his elbow just before he could do something drastic._

_“Let her handle this,” came Agent Carter’s smooth voice in his ear, “She knows what she’s doing.”_

_Bucky gazed between the two women, just catching a meaningful tilt of the head from Jean. Hodge shoved her back, spun her quickly and pulled her full-body against him again. And then—_

_“Ouch! Oh, oh no, oh no! My ankle, my shoe!” Jean dropped, only halfway as Hodge still had her by the arms. One ankle stretched behind her, the heel of her shoe lying separate from the sole. Hodge stared at her dumbfounded. Men rallied, clearing a chair while Stark retrieved the broken heel. “My ankle!” Jean wailed again. Herbie brought her a glass of ice wrapped in cloth._

_“Is it broken?” someone asked._

_Morita was there for an instant, his mouth already open to offer assistance but a glance telegraphed between him, Jean, the irate Hodge and Bucky and he dematerialized back into the crowd as Agent Carter stepped forward and knelt at Jean’s feet._

_“It’s not broken,” she told the crowd, “But it ought to be rested and elevated for the rest of the night.”_

_“Aw Gil,” Jean was laying on the lip-wobble a bit thick in Bucky’s opinion, but nobody else seemed to notice, “I hate to ruin your party like this. You gotta stay. The other girls’ll just despise me if I steal you away for the rest of the night.”_

_“Yeah,” agreed Hodge, “You’ll be all right. Carter’ll look after you, won’t you Carter? Don’t know how you can be a chorus girl with two left feet like that.” He ruffled her hair and departed, his entourage following behind._

_Agent Carter helped Jean up, lead her limping towards the door. Bucky moved to follow when another hand, Stark’s this time, caught him by the arm._

_“If Hodge sees another guy trailing after them he’ll get interested again. Leave ‘em for now.”_

_“What’s been going on here?” demanded Bucky._

_“You got any friends, fellas you really trust who aren't too busy making goo-goo eyes at Hodge?” asked Howard. Bucky nodded slowly. “Good. Then round them up and meet us back at HQ in fifteen minutes. We need a plan B.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shikata ga nai- ""it cannot be helped" or "nothing can be done about it", historically applied to large-scale injustices and hardships like the internment of Japanese Americans and Canadians.
> 
> As far I've found in my reading (please correct me if I'm wrong) Morita is Nisei or second-generation Japanese American (i.e. his parents were born in Japan, he was born in the US). Initially there were laws prohibiting Nisei men and women from serving in the Armed Forces, but these were repealed and tens of thousands served although they were generally not permitted to serve in the Pacific Theatre. Italian and German Americans were permitted to serve in the European Theater without objection. Many Nisei fought overseas while their families remained imprisoned. Some were drafted, some volunteered. Many volunteered not only to fight the Axis, but to prove their loyalty and their right to the respect and protection afforded any American citizen.
> 
> My personal headcanon is that Morita served in the 552nd Field Artillery Battalion, later responsible for liberating the Hurlach death camp. 
> 
> Find me on [tumblr ](http://caligularib.tumblr.com/)


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